Directory

Shmee Giarratana (they/them) supports the CIIS community as the Director of Student Success, positioned in Student Affairs. Shmee builds upon students’ rich academic experience through extra-curricular programs that connect student interest with key resources to thrive. In partnership with the Dean of Students, Shmee focuses on services for veterans and international students, career services, and basic needs programming to cultivate an academic environment focused on student success. Additionally, Shmee is the creator and adjunct professor of Creative Explorations of Self. They developed this course to guide student exploration of the phenomenology of self and social position through art-based inquiry. The course partners theoretical and empirical research with creative projects to help students examine unconscious assumptions and beliefs while integrating new perspectives and understandings.

Shmee is a mentor, educator, and intermedia artist whose work is driven by a commitment to creative emergence and accountable transformative practice. Shmee offers art-based programs grounded in mindfulness, embodiment, ritual, and creative play for self-inquiry, story weaving and community building. Their passion for storytelling spans from personal narrative to multi-cultural mythology, fostering a connection to the myriad of tales of our time and honoring story as a path into relationship. Shmee holds a BA in Film Studies from University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and a MA in Depth Psychology from Sonoma State University where they developed a place-based method of self-inquiry through narrative cartography. As a teaching artist & performer, The Art of Shmee has been seen at Bioneers, SF Fringe Festival, The Study of Dreams, Visionary Congress, Cucalores Film Festival, and Figment Arts, among others. Shmee is a company performer with Crescent Moon Theater Productions.